The Black Hour
By Lori Rader-Day
Series: Standalone
Genre: Adult, Mystery, Thriller
Publisher: Seventh Street Books
**I received a copy of this book, from the
publisher, in exchange for an honest review**
Goodreads Summary:
For
Chicago sociology professor Amelia Emmett, violence was a research topic—until
a student she’d never met shot her.
He also
shot himself. Now he’s dead and she’s back on campus, trying to keep up with
her class schedule, a growing problem with painkillers, and a question she
can’t let go: Why?
All she
wants is for life to get back to normal, but normal is looking hard to come by.
She’s thirty-eight and hobbles with a cane. Her first student interaction ends
in tears (hers). Her fellow faculty members seem uncomfortable with her, and
her ex—whom she may or may not still love—has moved on.
Enter
Nathaniel Barber, a graduate student obsessed with Chicago’s violent history.
Nath is a serious scholar, but also a serious mess about his first heartbreak,
his mother’s death, and his father’s disapproval. Assigned as Amelia’s teaching
assistant, Nath also takes on the investigative legwork that Amelia can’t do.
And meanwhile, he’s hoping she’ll approve his dissertation topic, the reason he
came to grad school in the first place: the student attack on Amelia Emmet.
Together and at cross-purposes, Amelia and Nathan stumble toward a truth that
will explain the attack and take them both through the darkest hours of their
lives.
Links:
My Thoughts:
This book
was rough for me and so was writing this review. I can’t even tell you how many
(much longer) versions of this ran through my head. Maybe it was me ‘getting my
hopes up’ or ‘having my expectations too high’ that got me into trouble. Either
way, The Black Hour was…okay. Just okay.
I wanted it
to dig more into sociology and the sociology of violence. I wanted the
characters to have the more drive to find out whether or not the shooting was
random. If it wasn’t a random shooting, I wanted the suspense of a good
mystery. I wanted to love the characters…or hate them…something. Instead I’m
left feeling very little towards any of them and overall a little disappointed
towards the book itself.
I’ve said
it before and I’ll say it again, just because I didn’t get what I wanted from
this book doesn’t mean you won’t.
Overall Rating: 2.9 out of 5
